


Oneliners (Of the not particularly cheesy variety)

by ohhhhyoufromchinatoo



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, but they mutated, i even wrote about Wesker I don't even LIKE Wesker, into something much larger, these are supposed to be one liners prompted by something
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohhhhyoufromchinatoo/pseuds/ohhhhyoufromchinatoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot can be said in one line, right? A collection of mini fic responses to one line prompts, whether lyrics, objects, phrases, or whatever else, and how they relate to various characters of Resident Evil helped along by cannedcoelacanth and suiyou/suikyou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prompt 1: "For you I'd burn the length and breadth of sky."

Jake gets an odd feeling stirred within his stomach whenever Sherry is near- a bubbling surge of feeling that starts in his stomach and threatens to spread through his body like fire, and though he knows she can take care of herself and he desperately wants to squash the romantic notions of chivalry that fly through his head, as he squares his shoulders, sets his hips and spreads his hands wide in a martial stance, the screaming, raw face of a Nepad bears upon him with a simmering, primal rage and he knows there is no end to how far he would go for her.

Prompt 2: “It's all good till it stops, it's all good till it's not. Sleep, nobody sleeps, it's always sideways.”

Rebecca unconsciously shifts with the aim of finding a more comfortable position in which she could finally sleep- the day’s events were still swimming around her head like absent minded goldfish; for a brief period her life she had felt stable, in control, no longer shackled to the lingering desires that tugged at the pit of her stomach like a child with a blanket- but that was before Billy Coen had come into her life again, bedraggled, exhausted, looking like shit but still with a smirk and a “Dollface” slipping off his lips like he had never left.

Prompt 3: Scarves!

Chris nervously affixes the hunter green scarf tighter around his neck to almost uncomfortable levels and coughs into his hand- and despite reassurances from Jill that the scarf looks perfectly natural on him and is his shade of green and the comforting, soft touch of cashmere, Chris looks at Piers, face covered in scars, one eye translucent blue green, and thinks of the shredded garment around his tainted neck, grey green embedded in blue gray flesh, and he wants to hit something, maybe himself.

Prompt 4: "I woke alone, I was still burning. The fire was all that's left, all that's left of you."

Jill’s voice is screaming itself hoarse in her mind, ragged pleas lost to deaf ears as the P-30 drug courses through her veins- “I’m sorry sorry so sorry, Please forgive me,” she is begging even as a snarl mars her face and with eyes filled with hate her gloved fingers close tighter around Chris Redfield’s throat, the desire to maim, hurt, even kill coursing through her unchecked like a wildfire as his blue eyes beseech her own, lost and sad yet somehow full of determination and for a moment, the fires abate and he reaches towards her chest.

Prompt 5: Brass goggles!

Billy tries very very hard not to wince as Rebecca tenderly appraises the angry red skin of his abdomen; he had been quick to wave off the jet of boiling air that nearly bowled him over in her workshop as nothing but as Rebecca adjusted her brass goggles tighter atop the crown of her head a stern, domineering look surfaced on her face and she told him, “Billy, possible second degree burns are NOT nothing-now drop the macho act and raise your shirt so I can see the damage,” and he decided it’d perhaps be better not to argue just this once.

Prompt 6: Abandon all and flee immediately.

“Sherry, we have to go- now!” Jake can’t help the note of desperation that slips into his urgent voice as Neo-Umbrella’s security sirens start to blare in his ears and for a moment he swears he can hear the cracking of J’avo cocoons- Sherry is frantically slamming keys on the display as data downloads onto her DSO jump drive- as soon as the bar pings 100 percent she snatches it out of the drive and turns on her heel without a word, Jake incredulously following her with a tight lipped smile, “After you, Supergirl.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote MORE (much to the horror of the reader. why won't he shut up about Resident Evil, they ask)

 

1\. Ring  
In what she hoped would be the last inane contrivance she had to deal with that night- though a sinking feeling in her chest told her that no, it would not- Rebecca placed the gold ring in the leather briefcase next to its identical silver counterpart- and, with a click, the briefcase opened up. Rebecca reached inside to find one single keycard, and Billy’s words summed up her feelings adequately. “A fucking _keycard_?”

2\. Autumn Leaves and Pumpkin Spice  
The autumn leaves skitter across the ground in a almost picturesque manner, something that Sherry has definitely learned to appreciate in her world of secret agents and multiple eyed J’avo. The pumpkin spice latte’s scent fills her nostrils and provides an appreciable sense of warmth as she takes a sip, but her face lights up as her phone buzzes and she gets a call from Jake. “Man, American coffee is expensive as hell.” She laughs, tightening the sky blue scarf around her neck as she replies, “Tightass.”

3\. “This is a gift, it comes with a price.” (I wrote two for this one…)  
 _This is a gift_ , Wesker rations to himself, the tentacles of Uroboros snaking their way through sudden holes in his skin, writhing in symphony as they weld charred metal to the skin of his right arm. No price was too great to pay for godhood- why should he grieve his human body, this frail mortal shell, when Uroboros was the peak of evolution? His eyes gleam a predatory red as he sees his longtime nemesis move to cover the African woman behind him, and little slithers of thought at the back of his mind whisper they will be the first to die.

The blood on Sherry’s back sizzles and burns, skin knitting itself back together rapidly as her gloved hands grip the ground in an iron vice and her heart hammers in her chest. Jake looks at her, amazed, stunned, maybe a little scared- and he looks at her like something is very, very wrong, and as she sits up, her blood staining the mountains of Edonia, she wonders once again if the legacy of her father was truly a gift if this was the price she had to pay. 

4\. Business attire  
Sheva moved like lightning, her long, bronze legs wrapping around the majini’s neck as she flipped him over and crushed his head as easily as paper mache. She rose, brushing the dust from her grey business skirt and adjusting her ponytail, and Chris gave her a thumbs up and a appreciative whistle. “Good work!” he tells her, silently wondering why he couldn’t have a business suit as he adjusted the leather straps that threatened to chafe his nipples.

5\. Colors and fabric  
Rebecca would never forget the first time she saw Billy Coen in a suit- her evening gown a sharp green with white accents, her signature colors, as it were- yet he showed up in a blue and gold ensemble that was both endearing and puzzling. She approached him at his stoic perch in the corner away from the rest of the throng of partygoers at the BSAA gala, glass of Occhio de Pernice in her grasp. “You look like you belong in some 50’s black and white crime drama,” she tells him, words slurred by the sweet red wine as she adjusts the white gerbera daisy hairpiece she wore, and as he takes her by the hand and leads her to the dance floor, she thinks that their colors might clash, but she does not care.

6\. Laundry Day  
Laundry day in Piers’ vocabulary translated to, “haul all the clothing you possibly can in one vehicle to the local Laundromat” as in, Sherry’s apartment willed to her by Derek C. Simmons, spit on his name, was too freshly moved into and there were still boxes and boxes of unpacked silverware and cutlery and how could they live in this mess Piers thinks with a fond smile as he recalls Jake putting his feet up on the table, arms behind his head as Sherry hauls in more boxes and threatens to unpack the cookware box and brain him with a frying pan. His smile turns to a look of horror as he suddenly holds in front of him a sheer men’s thong of micropoly and spandex with a lion printed near the bottom of the left leg. His cheeks turn fiery red with warmth at the article of clothing in front of him as well as the thought of Jake wearing it- it sure was not Piers’-and he instinctively reaches with his right arm to fling it into the washer, momentarily forgetting his arm is not there.

7\. Sleeping habits  
One of the first nights Billy stays with Rebecca, once the aftermath of Raccoon City has died down and become as dusty as the abandoned shelves in the Umbrella Training Facility, he stays awake with restless energy, propped up on his shoulders, chest bare as Rebecca lies next to him. He hears her whimpering and feels the bunching of the sheets under her fists and figures it’s a bad dream- he can’t fault her for that, God knows how many he’d had himself- but then she wakes up with a scream. She turns to him, hair disheveled, eyes glinting with tears. “Billy?” she asks him as she starts to sob, full bodied and choked up with grief, and he gathers her in his arms and holds her tight as she cries.

8\. Call  
Leon was never quite sure what to make of the few times he was ever able to contact Ada by telephone- always a different number disconnected immediately after, in hushed tones that held promises of secrets, roundabout aid and clandestine touches in the dark. They were infrequent and all too brief but the sound of Ada’s voice cheered Leon even during the most hectic of missions. He briefly wondered if their phone talks would ever progress to the status of a somewhat normal relationship where they talked about mundane, day to day things- but the first time he receives an anonymous text, warning him of bioweapons deals going down between anarchist mercenary groups in Central America, punctuated by a lipstick kiss, he thinks that what they have isn’t so bad.

9\. Birthday Cake!  
It was his birthday, and Sherry and Piers together both decided that he was Going To Get a Cake, no ifs, ands, buts, or rude remarks under his breath about silly consumerist American culture, thank you very much. Jake had no choice but to go along with their- ridiculous, in his mind- little plan as Sherry forcefully dragged him into the party mart for streamers and hats and party favors while Piers bought the groceries. Yet for all his bluster Jake is speechless when that afternoon, after being led into the kitchen by Sherry behind on him- on her tiptoes so she could cover his eyes while telling him not to peek- he sees a banner with “Happy Birthday Jake!” and fresh from the oven is a Black Forest Cake, his very own _schwarzwald kirsch kuchen_ , piled high with black cherries. He would later furiously deny that when Piers and Sherry both kissed him on the cheeks that he blushed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am sure you TOTALLY missed reading this self indulgent tripe :) prompts are listed before the response

-“Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show.”

The helicopter touches down on American soil and the heels of Jill’s battlesuit click a few steps- her somewhat unsteady, weary steps aided by Chris’ broad shoulders and supportive hands- before she is stopped and surrounded by a cautionary squad of BSAA support men, guns holstered, safety on, but the presence of ordinance at all is telling. Jill is able to place nearly every name to a face even as some of them eye her warily, with disbelief that *the* Jill Valentine, one of the Original 11, could still be alive, that three years of being controlled by Albert Wesker didn’t leave some sort of fucked up shit coursing through her veins. Jill understands and knows caution, but to see such distrusting looks on the faces of her colleagues scarred her as much as any P-30 device. 

“Given enough coffee, I could rule the world.”

Ingrid Hunnigan didn’t always resort to coffee- she was more a hot tea kind of lady- but there were the days, where her normally immaculate suit was wrinkled, hair disheveled and out of place, glasses askance on her face and tilted slightly to the left, where things in the DSO went awry, where she resorted to downing one cup. Leon remembers those days fondly and with a sense of slight terror as Hunnigan set to task with a fire in her eyes, fielding calls and submitting reports and still having a bit of free time to sass Leon about something or other- and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Determination/Desperation”

The thought would come to her many times in the empty nights after Raccoon, after Arklay- how exactly she was able to survive, her every step measured since the beams of her flash light illuminated the rain drenched train cars of the Ecliptic Express. Rebecca was not afraid to chalk most of it up to the efforts of Billy, of Chris and Jill, their determination inspiring her in turn. Yet there were moments, alone, bruised and bloody, her trembling muscles trying to shoulder Richard’s dead weight as she dragged his unconscious form through the dimly lit hallways of the Spencer Mansion, her pulse spiking madly as she searched for Billy in the filthy corridors and sewer sludge of the Umbrella Treatment Facility, that she knew came from her own strength. A sort of desperate strength, a fervent belief that things had to get better, one step forward, come what may. That she would open the next door, knob covered in rust, a bloody handprint smeared on the front, and things would be okay and the nightmare would end.

“Sight seeing”

It had been with Billy’s exasperation and eventual resignation that he agreed to accompany Rebecca on a trip to the botanical gardens and arboretum exhibit in Owensboro, Kentucky. Their miles of driving aimlessly- on the run, falsified identities, all their possessions in the world (and their weapons) stuck in two dinky knapsacks under the seats of their creaky Chevy- had eventually taken a toll on both of their sanities, and Rebecca had seen signs for *miles* leading to the exhibit and Billy had side eyed her, eyebrow raised, and scoffed “Kentucky?” like it was a bitter taste in his mouth and Rebecca pointed out they had some cash, she’d pay for both of them, PLEASE CAN WE GET OUT OF THIS CAR and he had relented- for her sake, he primarily tells himself, but as he sees her eyes mesmerized by the artfully arranged flowers, her attention fully consumed on memorizing the details of the flora written on little placques, he thinks that perhaps it isn’t so bad; in their situation, they had to take what little pleasures they could get and settle for what could distract them from reality for a few hours. (He makes a point to steer her away from Dave Roger’s Big Bug Exhibit, though, on the account of one too many bad memories of skittering legs and the smell of rotting flesh.)

“Greasy Spoon”  
Sherry figured that, sooner or later, her lack of knowledge concerning the local coming and goings of her neighborhood and what was actually available there would cross over from endearing to a little sad, so the weekend before thanksgiving when the paperwork on her desk was especially light she corralled Piers (who was still a little antsy about being in public with his prosthetic and eye bandage, but Sherry’s gentle cajoling- and possibly Jake’s comment of “Don’t be such a cowering puppy, go out there and get it over with” which Sherry had swiftly stomped on his toes for-had convinced him to go out) and Jake into a family brunch, of sorts. This was a bit of a cute, romantic notion in Sherry’s head but the reality entailed her worrying behind the driver’s seat of her car, NSA provided GPS sputtering useless directions as Piers attempted to helpfully read out directions from his phone instead while Jake sulked in the passenger seat. Eventually, the trio managed to find a small diner whose doors miraculously did not close at 2:00 in the afternoon. While Sherry was a little wary of the dust covering the booths and Jake spent much of the afternoon doling icy glares to customers who stared agape at Piers, while mouthing that his mother made much better blini, thank you very much, considering no one got shot or hauled into a beatdown by Jake, Sherry considered it a success.

“Family Recipe”

Jake might not carry around a lot with him from his childhood and from Edonia, but before leaving behind the hovel he and his mother had had the misfortune of calling a home he had made sure to gather the little index cards from the broken drawer in the kitchen, the pitiful collection yellowed with age and covered in brown spots indicative of water damage. Jake’s mother often wrote little observatory snippets in German or Russian and as he gazed upon them now, Jake felt a little prickle in the corners of his eyes and an ache rang hollow in his chest at his inability to read her faded handwriting. Footsteps lightly approached behind him and Jake dragged a hand across his eyes roughly as Sherry approached from behind. 

“Jake, is everything alright?” She asked, her blue eyes full of concern, and the right corner of Jake’s mouth tugged upwards into a smile at her concern despite his earlier sadness. 

“I am now.” He tells her with a quick peck on the cheek. “Mind checking on Piers while I finish this up? Don’t want him moping himself in a corner.”   
Sherry rolls her eyes good naturedly but complies anyway, as Piers had been a little more down, a little more withdrawn today than in the past few weeks. Jake finishes draining the sauerkraut to add to the kielbasa and hopes, as he twists the cap off the beer and pours it over the sausage, that the same love his mother showed in her cooking will shine through today.

“You can’ t bake in a microwave/ CONVENTIONAL OVEN, DO NOT MICROWAVE”

Rebecca’s college years were full of microbiology textbooks, biochemistry lectures that filled notebook pages up to the margins, and anything that occupied as little room in her freezer in possible but gave her enough energy for the next day. It was an odd little reflection like this that occurred to Rebecca as she bustled about her kitchen, combining cake mix and pistachio pudding, checking that her cake pan was adequately floured, and mixing together sugar, milk, and butter for the finishing glaze of her pistachio bundt cake that she was bringing to Sherry Birkin’s housewarming. She had spent such a long time living meal to meal, pre processed foods with cardboard packaging marked “CONVENTIONAL OVEN, DO NOT MICROWAVE” being staples of her diet due to a lack of time and energy. So being able to sit down- or rather, stand up- and cook something- not microwaveable- was as satisfying as any day at work. 

“Cool and Clear”

Jill tried not to indulge her secret sweet tooth except for only on memorable occasions-missions that wore her down to the bone usually called for something tooth rottingly sweet as a reward. After Edonia, after that half year period of Chris’ disappearance and the subsequent human shaped void left behind in his absence, Jill tried to abstain from anything sweet entirely- cupcakes, ice cream, the cookies Rebecca sent over with little sympathy cards. Jill felt a profound sense of weariness and exhaustion at every second that dragged on for an eternity without news of her partner and even the rare treat normally failed to pick up her spirits. But when Chris, bruised and bone weary with a bit of a slur in some of his words and eyes red with grief but still undoubtedly Chris, is debriefed and decontaminated after China, it takes him a bit longer than usual to return home from the office, barring the marathon Q & A session from BSAA higher ups and reporters eager to snatch a photo and a quip from the long missing, even thought dead member of the Original Eleven. But he is at her door eventually, bleary eyed and ruddy faced but with a weary smile, and Jill notices in his hand is clutched an ice cream cone, and she can’t decide if she should cry or yell so she settles for a mixture of both as the cool and clear taste of simple vanilla fills her tastebuds, a sensation that she had missed, but not nearly as much she had missed her best friend.

“You built up your heaven on the back of hell.”

S.T.A.R.S., broken down into its barest components, was a chimeric hodgepodge of people from diverse backgrounds- Air Force pilots, potential Delta Force candidates. Rebecca didn’t have as much time as she desired to get to know them or whether they worked together well in the field. But, she ponders, as she cradled Richard’s dying body in her arms, as Chris and Jill brought their arms to bare against the marble white flesh of the ever grinning tyrant, as they rest, ragged and drained as the Spencer Mansion goes up in flames, perhaps heaven can be found where hell is hottest.

“Hell is other people.”

Sherry Birkin had definitely, quantitavely, irrefutably lived through hell. Or, as close to hell as any one person could describe. She would never forget the moans coming from shredded vocal cords, the ragged police uniforms that smelled like rot, the pattering of rotten footpads and the saliva dripping from decayed teeth. Feelings of regret, of confusion, and betrayal- the enormity of them burning underneath the surface, as Derek Simmons orders his men to fire, as Jake dives to protect her, as bullets scar the concrete. Perhaps, she thinks, as she tries to hurriedly wipe the tears away so Jake doesn’t see, Hell was not Raccoon City. Hell was other people.

“Clothes swapping”

“Is that one of my scarves?” Sherry tilts her head for a closer look at the pink twill scarf bundled around Jake’s neck. A self conscious tug at the neck and a bit of a blush reinforces her belief. 

“s’ Laundry day.” Jake supplies as he adjusts the ivory turtleneck that Sherry swore was in her top dresser earlier this morning. The sizing was too small and left a portion of Jake’s stomach exposed, but Sherry couldn’t fault him for trying.

“So you take Sherry’s clothes?” Piers says across the hall, accusatory even as he adjusts a pair of Jake’s suspenders over the length of his torso and Sherry wonders why it was so hard for her boyfriends to clean their clothes.

“For the bayonet Has carved away, And it carves away At the arrowhead Lodged within my breast.”

Memories carried their own weight and power, leaving scars all their own- though not as plainly visible as the one on Jake's face. Still, it was easier; pushing people away, caring only for how much money would change hands between the end of this mission and the next, not viewing those caught in between as anything other than an unfortunate statistic. Yet it was meeting Sherry, all her gentle firmness, her soft edges, her determination, that started to wear away at the walls he had carefully built up since his mother's death, her presence the bayonet carving at the arrowhead in his chest.

“Steam Punk Dress Up”

The giant behemoth ship Arklay sails effortlessly through the sky, bellowing clouds of hot steam, propellors atwirl as it takes to the billows and breezes of the wind as gracefully as a dolphin leaps from the ocean. However, such a metaphor lost much of its meaning to the steam ship’s medic, young Rebecca Chambers. Every billow and adjustment of the giant ship sent the medic stumbling and as soon as she felt like she had her bearings, googles carefully readjusted into place, she caught sight of the earth far below and she felt a wave of queasiness come along, as soon as a train on a track.

“Having trouble finding your sea legs, princess?” The charming (yet somehow infuriating) deckhand Billy Coen asks her, hair not a strand out of place. He navigates the deck of the steamship with ease and graciously offers a hand to the out of sorts young woman, who is simultaneously charmed and somewhat humiliated at her lack of face.

“We’re not even at sea!” She manages before the steamship rocks and she finds herself falling forward neatly into Billy’s arms- and, momentarily, her sense of bewilderment at this strange setting of monocles and lace, steamships and cogs for every little thing is forgotten.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These were all written around Christmas time! Thought I'd have a little separate bit for these.

“Utmost Secrecy”

Sherry carefully tiptoes downstairs to the landing of her apartment, trying to keep her steps as light as possible. Her socks slip and slide on the burnished wooden floor  of the landing and she flails in a moment of panic, trying not to topple over as she rounds the stairwell and the cheap, plug in, fake (but still ours) Christmas tree comes into view. Her smile widens as she sees the presents under the tree, marked with all the names of people she had come to consider her family; one for Chris, one for Claire, Leon’s carefully tucked between them; when she sees Jake’s present addressed to Piers, haphazardly wrapped and sloppily addressed, she almost breaks into a fit of laughter before reminding herself that this was a mission of utmost secrecy; she sure didn’t want to wake up Jake and Piers, tangled together in heap of limbs and covers on the couch and have them both see her place their gifts under the tree.

Christmas lists

Jill Valentine sits, tip of pen perched in her mouth, the hand not clutching the clipboard in front of her worrying the hair at the nape of her neck. Chris had approached earlier that morning, with the look on his face of that of a man on a mission, and had requested one thing from her; “Write me a Christmas list.” And here the famed Jill Valentine was, she who had taken down tyrants, zombies, hunters, and even an infected tentacle whale- yet, the idea of creating a Christmas list was one of the hardest battles she had faced; perhaps because the one thing she wanted was, for just one holiday, just one year, for no outbreaks to claim the lives of the people she cared about, for no last minute call ins, no six months, no three years of  searching, of futile hope, of terror that one of the people that helped keep her tethered could be gone from her life, and unfortunately, that was something Chris couldn’t deliver wrapped under the tree.

“Temperance”

Chris would hesitate to call himself a heavy drinker; yes, there were nights where the stresses of his job necessitated that he get completely, totally trashed, to medicate with liquor, so forgetting became a little easier. In the suddenness of China, the chaos of gunfire and C-Virus mutants and Piers (sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully) calling “Captain!” when his world had been one of cigarette butts and empty glasses piled at a bar were his temperance. However, after the entrance to the escape pod opened and Chris saw the red horizon over Chinese waters, red like the blood staining the BSAA badge curled tight in his palm, he realizes his hands are shaking.

“Winter Wonderland”

Claire generally does her best to not dwell on France, on Rockfort Island, on Antarctica. She is grateful for the experience she gained against the new T-Virus mutations, of course; any combat tactics she could share would go a long way towards preparing others and sparing them from the same horror she repeated just months after Raccoon City. But too many nights she dwelled on Alfred’s graffitied maze, the zombies clawing their way from the ground like demented plants , Alexia’s haughty manner and noblewoman’s laugh. It gets especially hard around Christmas time. Antarctica, without T-Veronica tentacles and maniacal Umbrella researchers with dubious pedigrees, was the picture perfect (Freezing cold!) winter wonderland, but come December, Claire always thinks back on cradling Steve’s body as he tries to whisper that he loves her.

Bomber jacket/top coat/pea coat

The winter weather hadn’t quite reached the intolerably cold levels it had reached in the streets of Edonia last Christmas, but some nights the roads had begun to ice over and snowflakes frosted the surface of their bedroom windows and Sherry would be damned if she let Jake go around one more afternoon in his suspenders and black t-shirt with short sleeves, “built like a tank” or not. So to his indignant protests of “But these’re *comfortable*, Sher” she coerced him into an afternoon of properly shopping for winter apparel. Piers was appropriately (and handsomely! Sherry thought) attired in a wool topcoat of hunter green and the young NSA agent believed it would be criminal if she and Jake didn’t get something at least as stylish. So, what the hell, it was Christmas and it was time to splurge with the people she cared about! Their long afternoon of fitting and sizing was punctuated with Jake’s comments of “this one’s too damn short” or lines of “$300 for this scratchy wooly shit??” but with a little gentle encouragement from Sherry and some commentary on style and presentation from Piers the trio came away with a bomber jacket- “The black one!” Jake had insisted- and an ivory white pea coat for Sherry which she accessorized with a light blue pashmina scarf.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And these were the New Years prompts! didn't want to overload you all with too much of this nonsense at once.

“magic”

The partition gates descend into the ground and lock into place as Billy presses the switch in the underground control room of the Umbrella Research Center’s Basement and wow, this certainly feels like one of the least convoluted things he has had to do over the course of the night.

“Looks like there’s some kind of key in this disposal area, and it looks safe to grab. I’ll get it and rendezvous with you,” Rebecca’s voice crackles over the short wave radio and just as Billy is about to respond with a “Copy that,” his words are cut short by the sounds of plodding footsteps and a high pitched, inhuman scream.

“Shit, Rebecca!” Billy shouts and his pulse quickens as he sees some kind of scaled creature, impossibly barrel chested and with razor sharp claws and tiny, beady eyes that would be hilarious if they didn’t gleam a predatory golden-yellow. But his concern quickly gives way to awe as Rebecca maneuvers around the creature with an agility suited to her stature and fires upon it with the grenade launcher.

An acidic substance splashes onto the scaly coat of the monster and it falls back, flailing and writhing before dying with a gurgle and seconds after, a voice responds on the radio and Billy can feel the smile in his partner’s voice, “Acidic grenades? Work like magic.”

“bubbly”

“Here’s to 2013?” Sherry ventures somewhat hesitantly, tipping her  bubbly glass of imported German _sekt  (_ Jake had absolutely insisted on importing some German wine, over Piers’ inquiry of“Are you even 21 yet?”) in the direction of the men across from her. Jake’s eyes are narrowed and his chin is resting on the forearm of his crossed hands and he just eyes Sherry, eyebrows raised as if to say “Are you _joking?”_ Piers is dozing, chin dipped down to his chest and breathing light, oblivious to the last minutes of the tumultuous year of the lives- a year of J’avo, of Ustanak relentlessly pursuing them across continents, of C-Virus infections, of six months of imprisonment and experimentation- and Sherry shrugs, “I didn’t think so.”

Auld Lang Syne

“What exactly is this song, again?” Jake whispers, hand cupped over his mouth as he implores Piers of the meaning of this Strange American Tradition; Sherry, Leon, Claire, Helena, everyone Jake met during the incidents in China and Edonia plus a few extra are gathered and stumbling through what Jake can recognize as (an *attempt*) at Scottish pronunciation.

Piers, sans a right arm to reach out to his neighbor in the circle and not entirely willing to subject someone to having to awkwardly grapple with his prosthetic, is nursing a glass of wine next to Jake on the couch and replies, “It’s to help usher in the New Year, commemorating friends you’ve made in the last, stuff like that.”

“Seems like a pretty good thing to celebrate, then,” Jake comments, hiking his legs up on the footrest and crossing his arms behind his neck; Piers stares at him, at a loss for words at the surprising emotional honesty coming from the mercenary; and Jake, noticing the continued eye contact from Piers, scowls, “*What*? Do I look like that much of a bastard?”

Fireworks

Fireworks  scatter their patterns into the night sky, dazzling lights in an array of designs that flare brightly, then vanish for an instant like lightning. Sherry, admittedly, is paying more attention to Jake’s reactions- he had admitted to her rather sheepishly that he had never gone to see fireworks; “They’re loud and explode like dynamite right? Just not with the whole usually fatal thing,” he had responded when Sherry had asked if he would be interested in going, and Piers had quipped, “Well of course you’d be interested when something ends up exploding that could possibly kill you.” He sits rapt, clapping and cheering when one is especially loud and bright; Piers on the other hand is tense and flinches when  one is especially loud, and Sherry’s fingers tighten themselves around his whenever he stiffens up, her other hand resting on top of Jake’s.

 

Silly Party Hats/Party Favors

“Y’know, this kinda cheesy stuff-” Helena indicates with a sweep of her arm the noise makers, the glittering eyeglasses stenciled in the shape of 2014, she even tilts the silly striped party hat Sherry had insisted she wear- “Deborah always said she hated it but it was these kind of events where everyone gathered that she really loved. She tried to cultivate this whole party girl, hard rocker image but she was really soft on the inside.”

She pauses, brushes errant strands of hair out of her eyes, and leans forward on her elbows as she speaks, “I was wondering, Leon, if- maybe you’d like to come with me to see her.” Leon nods earnestly in response, a smile spreading upon his face at the trust that had come to build between them, “Of course.”

New Year’s Resolutions

“So you make a set of promises to keep the second the next year comes around?” Jake asks, bemused, his lips- that peculiar manner where only the left edge of his mouth does- curving into a combination smirk smile. Piers’ had been affirming and positive; “To not be as self conscious about my prosthetic, to perfect my aim with my left hand.” and Sherry had promised that she would spar three times a week with both Jill and Jake in order to bolster her close combat skills and better defend herself. At Jake’s moments of silence Sherry puts her hand on her hips and cocks her head, “You’ve got to make some kind of promise, Jake!” And Jake’s hands are suddenly on her waist and he kisses her on the forehead, smiling wickedly as a blush creeps upon her cheeks, “You know I’d lie, super girl.”

End of year “best” lists

Sherry stumbles upon Jake’s “best of” list as she’s tidying up the apartment, his lettering in a sloppy, scratchy scrawl almost as if he was in too much of an excited hurry to completely finish his thoughts on paper. At the bottom of the list is “killing that ugly ass motherfucker” in all lower case, and Sherry suppresses her urge to giggle at the afterthought in parenthesis: (Ustanak). Her eyes take in several surprisingly heartwarming notes as they scan up the paper; “New friends- Leon, Helena, Redfield (not sure on last one??)” “my blood helping to save the world- worth something after all!!” but it was the top of the list that brought a smile to Sherry’s face. “Meeting Sherry,” And underneath that in a post script, hastily added, is “Piers too.”


	6. Chapter 6

  * Terami Hirsch’s “Drawing up stories” from “The River”



“There’s gotta be a story behind that scar,” Piers  tells Jake,  reaching out and touching the left side of Jake’s face hesitantly, his left hand pausing momentarily in the space in front of Jake’s skin, as if not entirely certain, (not entirely coordinated) of its actions.

“Can’t be half as interesting as yours,” Jake responds quietly, trying  not to stare at the patchwork  plane of the older sniper’s right temple, a crisscross of healing coral pink  and healthy skin tone.  

Piers’ fingers drag themselves down the landscape of his face, tracing from the high tip of his cheekbones to his jaw, and they linger there as if to reaffirm that what’s he touching is real.

“Let’s draw up the stories, then.”

* * *

 

  * Flowers



Spending a little over half of your life with someone lends itself to learning details some might consider absurd.  Chris Redfield knows approximately how long it takes Jill to reload her handguns (just under four and  half seconds) and  can predict just how she distributes her weight and sets her feet to put the maximum amount of force behind one of her kicks- being on the receiving end of more than a few himself.  But some little details weren’t quite work applicable and in the years following Jill’s death, they got lost in the haze  of grief and  guilt; Chris couldn’t remember  how Jill took her  coffee (with steamed milk and sugar) or her favorite flavor of ice cream to curl up and watch a movie with (rocky road.) He laments, as he places the carefully crafted bouquet of flowers- stokes’ aster, a cornflower blue; blue, like her STARS uniform, blue, like her beret, blue, like her eyes- on her grave that he had never thought to ask her favorite flower.

* * *

 

  * Frost



Piers’ eyes- well, eye, singular, he keeps forgetting that he just has the one now that can see worth shit- take in the frost starting to sketch its patterns on the ground outside and he  shivers involuntarily, thinking of the cold days of Edonia and the  stories high B.O.W. that threatened to  crush them in the snowy streets outside of the City Hall, but he hears a muffled grunt of  his name and returns to the bed, trying not to disturb Sherry’s motionless, quiet form while avoiding Jake’s sprawl of limbs.

* * *

 

  * Weariness/exhaustion



Sure, Jake Muller had been weary to the bone before and had moments where every step felt like a colossal effort, but, he thinks,  steering the tugboat around  various and sundry flaming, collapsing (or both) bits of debris while Sherry scans the environment, as that monster popped out of the water like it hadn’t been set on fire and electrocuted, making that unearthly screeching  noise and a  chainsaw that somehow whirred with the remnants of it’s own fuckin’ ribcage, its ruin of a face glistening in the sparking kanji of the dying signposts- that this?  This was the weariest he had felt all his life.

* * *

 

  * When's there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire



Haos had raged in after them, all translucent skin and roaring sea water as it began to choke the life out of Chris Redfield. Piers right arm was now a bloody ragged stump, and, if he narrows his eyes through the haze of pain, he thinks he can still see the crushed pulpy muscle underneath all  that metal. He is dragging himself through the water with his left hand, trying not to slip in the  bloody water, trying not to cry, he has to do something to save his captain or it’s all gonna end here. Out of the corner of the his fading vision  he sees a syringe of the enhanced C-Virus,  how did it not get crushed? He thinks blearily but no time, no time. He drags himself, every step a Sisyphean task in rivulets of reddening water, closer, closer, Chris is yelling,  don’t have any guns, shit shit. His hands scrabble for the C-Virus syringe, with his left arm he clumsily, hurriedly places the syringe over the space where his right arm used to be, and presses the plunger down and as the needle sinks into his  flesh he feels  a jolt.

* * *

 

  * “Where were you when I was still kind”



Jake Muller was the first person to admit that he maybe enjoyed crushing a J’avo’s  head against the  concrete of  a tenement building in China a little too much, that seeing one of those fuckers sprout another limb or WINGS  or turn into a screeching lizard just made him feel more exhilarated as  he considered all the different, new ways he could take it down. He threw every ounce of himself into every fight, with  no real care as to whether he got hurt or killed- dying on a blade might not be the way he wanted to go but there was no one left to mourn for him. Keeping people at a distance was easier  than letting  them get close and having them stab you in the  back. But then his life careened into that of Sherry Birkin’s- and an avalanche and six months in a testing facility and an explosive ride in an underwater oil facility  later, her hands are curling  around his, grimy and bruised and marred with blood but so warm and full of life. And he thinks that maybe from now on, he’ll be a little more careful.

* * *

 

  * “Then he struck my heart with a deadly force, and he said ‘This heart, it is not yours’”



Claire Redfield knew ever since her earliest memories of Chris picking her up,  scabby knees and all, and piggybacking her  around the front yard that they were  stuck with  each other, for life, You Are One of My Most Important People. So when the summer weeks dwindled in 1998 and  so did her contact with  her brother she resolutely vowed to find him, emotionally distant, bullheaded, hard to contact brother clause be DAMNED. And thus she fought through Raccoon City tooth and nail with a scared little girl at her side (and she personally didn’t feel much different) and after that, Rockfort. But it all paled in those six months after Christmas in 2012, when there was no word whatsoever and any attempts she made to get answers from the BSAA were stonewalled. When he stumbles home still clutching Piers’ bloody BSAA badge in his hand she really  really wants to hit him, to scream and yell, to remind him that he didn’t belong to just himself,  to remind  him of that promise he made to never die on  her, but she settles instead for hugging him as hard as she possibly can and trying not to cry against his  chest.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there are several of these i have not posted yet that I thought some others might like to see!

  * “Scars cover you in fine lines, number you a timeline”



Years of fighting things both human and decidedly not so have earned Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine a litany of scars. They could almost be itemized, identified, sorted in a list in descending order from life threatening to “this could almost be cosmetically appealing and badass.” Jill knew that the one that streaked right across Chris’ pectoral muscles, for example, was from the knife of a gun for hire that got too close during a bioweapons deal in Jakarta. (one gun for hire that Jill had promptly shot  in the head). Chris knew that the one that jagged its way up Jill’s right thigh came from some shards of glass that had littered the ground to unfortunately break their fall during an escape from an ambush in a burrow in Leeds. But then Africa happened, and after that, China; holes in chests and holes in hearts and those were scars that never faded.

* * *

 

  * “Fingerless gloves”



Rebecca’s favorite pair of black leather gloves- the ones that cut off just above the knuckle- fit in just perfectly with her S.T.A.R.S. comrades and their preoccupation with half sleeve tops and bared forearms. But those gloves, stylish as they were, in hindsight didn’t provide half as much protection to her hands as she would  have liked against the slavering, snapping jaws of the rotting Dobermans that scrabbled for her  throat, nor did they do much to stop the swiping claw hands of a zombie in the mansion she had SWORN she  had killed but swearing did little as  it got up and preceded to run at her, sclera milky white and face covered in blood. So, long story short, in the moments of mourning for lost teammates she mourned a little more quietly for her gloves, shredded to pieces.  She  was utterly surprised one morning to find a  brand new pair in her post office box  one day, no return address or identifying information on the package, but the dog tags hung warm and secure around her neck and Rebecca had the teeniest of hunches as to who had send her the gift.

* * *

 

  * “Nature’s grand, isn’t it?”



Jill’s eyes take in the sun breaching over the horizon, snow capped mountains of the  Caucasus looming in the distance,  an almost picturesque sight  if not for the bullet riddled  corpses of hunters dotting the landscape. As the chilly winds bite at her cheeks (not unlike the  rotting mouths of dozens of zombies she had killed earlier) the first word that comes to mind is: _cold._ A kind of pervasive, bone chilling cold that slithers in underneath her heavy coat and seeps into the core of her being. She and Chris had been the guillotine to Umbrella’s proverbial neck yet this ending, this sense of finality felt foreboding. One short gasp of relief and respite before the next battle. Jill sighed, trying not to come across as exhausted and frustrated as she felt, but Chris looked over at her and smiled, all triumph and accomplishment snowflakes alighting in his hair  and Jill laughs, knowing that whatever  came next, they would face it together.

* * *

 

  * “You know I’d rather be alone than be without you.”



His weary hands are starting to  ache, he knows he is leaving a trail of blood behind him that that insipid little girl and her moronic brother will follow, his vision is starting to fade. But he can’t die, not yet, not until he sees his sister again. Alfred Ashford, once one of the scions of the storied Ashford family, is a bloodied, broken mess of a man. The last step feels like it takes years for him, the pain in his gut white hot and unbearable. But he raises his weary head and sees her. Alexia, the sister he loved, the sister he would die for- the sister he is dying for. Her noble features, even more beautiful after all these years, her sharp wit evident in her eyes even as the sight in his fades. She is all encompassing, overwhelming, her presence the water that fills the empty chalice of his soul. The last thing he sees is Alexia coming to his side, he feels her cradle him  in her arms, and he dies with her name on his lips.

* * *

 

There are dreams, of  water flooding into his nose and mouth, of the air being driven out of his lungs,  the feeling of powerlessness as  he was crushed beneath the pressure of  the ocean, as surely as the murky  memories of  his arm being crushed beneath tons of metal. And  those nights Piers is  jarred from sleep,  his chest heaving, and he feels suffocated, like the C-Virus cocoon is closing around him again, and he can’t quite remember whether his imaginings or  the reality was worse. But Sherry and Jake are there with him this time, the warmth and the feelings of proximity helping to clear the stifled air.

(Sherry often wakes when he does as if by instinct, and she’ll  hold his hand comfortingly, and will cup his face when that fails, and the  sorrowful look in her eyes- one of understanding and empathy- is one that Piers is grateful for even as it breaks his heart.)

* * *

 

  * “I said I’ll check in tomorrow if I don’t wake up dead.”



It had been more than ten years and he can’t feel this is, perhaps, exorbitantly selfish of him. But he  had  spent months thumbing through out of date phonebooks, scrounging money from the odd jobs he worked that didn’t require much from him apart  from labor to buy a shitty flip phone with prepaid minutes. He finally finds her name under a 703 area code- Washington, D.C, where the BSAA had established their headquarters.

_Couldn’t quite tear yourself away, could you, princess?_ Billy muses to himself as he dials the number he had scribbled on a small post it note, crumpled and mixed in with the loose change, lint, and falsified id’s in his pocket. Dead men had no right making phone calls, calling in on people who had moved on with their lives, even if she was the one who saved him that summer night in Raccoon. He’s half a mind to hang up, not intrude  on her world after he’d been so long not a part of it, the droning of the phone heightening his nerves.

“This is Rebecca Chambers.”

And he thinks of her, turning around to face his gun in that car of the Ecliptic Express, deftly catching the radio he had tossed her but not  before threatening to shoot him if he tried anything, the perfect stance salute and the smile on her face  as she had turned and headed  towards the mansion.

“Been thinking about me, dollface?”

* * *

 

  * “It’s too cold for you here.”



She’s shivering, hugging her sides for warmth  and even with the goose down lining of her jacket she can see the shimmering mist of her breath.

“It’s even colder in here than it is outside. How do you stand it here?” Sherry says through trembling lips, following Jake to the door, Triple Shot at her hip in ready stance.

The infrastructure of the building was completely torn to shit; concrete pillars crumbling, hand rails rusted away, and the J’avo that descended from the ceiling exposed to them the Edonian sky through a filter of snow.

“You get used to it,” Jake tells her  offhandedly, wiping snow from the high collar of his heavy jacket. His new partner looked soft and delicate, like a heavy wintry breeze might tip her over, but she handled the freezing weather and shrieking J’avo with aplomb.

“Whatcha say to a nice hot pot of coffee once we get out of here?”

“It better be a roast worth 50 million!” She replies, and Jake can’t help but laugh at their situation, at this weird sense of camaraderie they’ve built, at their comfortability that let them joke with each other even as they’re running for their lives.

“I think I can manage that.”

(It takes six months, but Jake manages.)

(It takes six months, after avalanches, after syringes and pokes and prodding, after motorcycle chases and explosions in underground facilities. It's a German brand, "dallmayr" Jake had told her. And its entirely too dark and bitter for Sherry's taste and she adds a lot of sugar and cream as Jake pulls a wry face, but they manage.)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did anyone miss these? i don't know if anyone missed these. but i wanted to share them regardless. Again, these are mini ficlets, drabbles, anything like that inspired by a prompt, usually one word.

Billy and Rebecca,  Teach me how to play.”

 

“Teach me how to play!” She insists, perhaps more insistently than she intended  and great, *that* totally helps her come across more as a bossy know it all, great job,  Chambers.

All she gets from the ex-Marine over on the piano bench is a bemused “Buh??” more of an incredulous statement than anything, eyebrows furrowing together in  confusion.

Billy’s piano playing had been admirable, his movements confident, assured, and controlled. and Rebecca in comparison felt rather like she had flung one of those oozing leech creatures onto the ivory and let it slither across the keys in. 

His natural poise while playing made the bar room feel almost comfortable, safe; Rebecca caught herself imagining Umbrella employees treasuring their off time here,cracking open a vintage wine to drink while playing classical tunes on the piano.

She clenched her teeth hard and set her jaw firmly, frowning; it wouldn’t do to start giving Umbrella their humanity now.

“That little melody you played to unlock that sliding door mechanism. I’d like to learn it.”

Billy scoots over and pats the space on the bench next to him amiably.

“Girl wonder like you never picked up an instrument?”He asked, and chuckled as Rebecca’s facial expression soured. “I would’ve imagined you like a modern day Mozart or Beethoven, child prodigy and all.”

“Ugh,reading sheet music is like looking at a quantum physics equation; I don’t understand it and I don’t like that I can’t make sense of it.”

She moves around in front of him and the broad expanse of his chest is against her back, his hands above hers, guiding her fingers over the proper keys.

At first she stumbles, wincing when she makes a mistake and the sound comes out wrong; but Billy doesn’t admonish her as he teaches and she learns.

“Where does a Marine turned convict pick up training in classical piano?” She asks, the music a comforting backdrop.

“Ah, ah, ah, I’ve gotta take some secrets to my grave, don’t I?”

They both laugh in sync to this, and Rebecca tries very hard not to think of that, of his scenario once they escape, of his likelihood of survival.

She would much rather focus on the music.

 

***

* * *

 

Billy and Rebecca, “Have you lost your damn mind?”

 

“Have you lost your damn mind?” There’s a desperate edge to her voice  that she fails to hide and she’s unsure if it’s because  she  can’t  hide or it doesn’t want to.

“It’s in the same place as always last I checked, Rebecca.”

The ruins of the Umbrella Research Center  are   smoldering behind them, smoke unfurling in fiery blossoms, lending  the yellowing sky above the pair an orange-red glow.

Hot smoke clouds the air , heated ash stinging the corners of her vision. Tears pinprick her eyes and she’s not entirely sure if it’s from the irritation alone.

“After all this, you just plan on walking away? Alone?”

“Don’t you remember what I said? My only choices are to turn myself in or keep running, and I’m not about to stop now.”

Rebecca steps closer to  him. “You could still come with  me, I could  explain the situation to my squad, my superiors and Alpha team squad mates Chris and Jill are sure to  understand…”

Her explanations falter in the view of his stony  expression and the evidence stacked overwhelmingly against  them. 

A former U.S. marine turned  escaped convict with  only the testimony  of an eighteen  year old rookie cop, already insubordinate on her first mission, to his innocence.   That’d go over swell.

“Sweet of you to offer, Rebecca, but that’d only prolong the inevitable.”  

“Then… let me go with you.” The words are  out of Rebecca’s mouth before she can parse the enormity of what she’d offered. 

She hesitates, a moment too long, before adding. “At least… at least until we can get you of Raccoon Forest, get you to a safehouse of some kind, you could stay in my apartment…”

Billy’s face softens for an imperceptible moment, so brief  it wouldn’t be  Rebecca’s surprise had she just imagined it.

“You’ve done enough for me tonight, more than I could’ve  asked of anyone.” More than I could’ve expected, he doesn’t have to add. 

“I’m not putting you through that, not when you have a job to do, not when there’s somewhere important you have to be.”

She  falters for a moment before instinctively grabbing his hands as if to root him to the spot and make him stay.

“I’m not letting you just walk away alone. I’m not watching you die.” She struggles mightily to swallow the lump obstructing her throat, to ignore the empty, vulnerable feeling in her chest, like she’d been hollowed out and left exposed.  She holds his gaze even as the tears threaten to fall.

“You won’t have to.” 

She feels his hands around her neck, the snapping of a ball chain securing dog tags in place as they rest comfortably against her chest, a residual source of warmth  from the heat of his skin, a symbol of the  secret  and all its enormity he is entrusting to her, of everything they had been through together and more. 

The sun breaks fully over the horizon and she salutes him, holding his gaze for perhaps a moment too long before softening her stance and turning on her heel, descending towards the mansion in the forests beneath them.

She does not look back.

***

Chris and Jill, “Wait a minute…are you jealous?” and  “I think we need to talk.”

* * *

 

“Wait a minute.” Chris’ smile breaks slowly on his face from the bench where he seats, taking root and lifting up the corners of his mouth before blooming into a fully fledged smile, one that Jill still finds incredibly charming even as  she still, slightly, kinda wants to hit it off of his face.

She instead settles for recentering her gravity before planting the side of her heel into the center of the punching bag dangling in front of her.

The two of them are convening for the third time that week in the free weights room of the rehabilitation facility in which Jill is spending the last few months of her company mandated confinement.

Convening is perhaps a poor choice of words as it would imply the two meet for a shared purpose; for Jill many of the exercises are the most strenuous thing her days amount to. 

The BSAA’s psychological and physical evaluations both had been passed  with flying colors (she had had time to heal, since Africa), yet the majority of her time was relegated to clerical work or low risk reconnaissance missions, as if she was rookie who needed  to cut her teeth. 

“Of Piers?” The training implement swings back towards her and she plants her weight on her left leg as she thrusts forward with her right in a side kick, and it responds with a gratifying _whumph._

“Hardly!” She breathes out heavily, wiping sweat dampened locks of hair out of her eyes. 

Chris plants his feet and leans forward, interlocking his hands and resting his chin on them.  “Jill, I really do  think we need to talk about this. Something’s troubling you.”

Jill sighs, feeling like she would much rather deflect and talk about anything else- about Chris’ recent return from Australia and the biohazard outbreak at Philosophy University, for example.

It was true that aspects of their professional relationship had changed- two years of quarantine tend to do that- and most of Jill’s career with regards to her status as “legally declared dead” and “complicit, self aware or not. in Albert Wesker’s experiments with Uroboros in Africa” was tangled in enough red tape to suffocate a Malacoda.

And there are some things that she can’t tell Chris, even, but she refuses to let this be one of them.

“He has skills, I can admit that. Sharp pair of eyes, quick on his feet, eager to please and follow orders.”  That was easy enough to start with.

“And with the stakes always changing, body counts always rising- Chris, we aren’t as young as we used to be. I understand the need to have competent successors.”

“But… I hate not being in the field with you. I hate being stuck here for analysis, for constant monitoring like I’m a bomb about to go off, like I’m a B.O.W. about to mutate in some new way, like one of the things you’re out in the field fighting against, like one of the things I know I can still fight against.”

“But most of all… I can’t accept the fact if something happens to you while I’m not there. Something I could prevent.”

“I don’t want to be told that they found your body.” 

It’s  there, and maybe it’s heavier than what she intended to admit, but if he’s bothered by any of it- and of course he isn’t; Jill knows him well enough that he would speak if he did- he just stands, threading one of his larger hands into hers and rests his head atop hers.

He doesn’t have to remind her that they never found hers.

***

* * *

 

“tapping”

It’s an innocuous enough sound, really, and frankly she can hardly hear it over the rage of the blowing blizzard outside and the crackling fire.

Jake’s foot tapping rhythmically against the threadbare wooden floor of the cabin is in time as he opens and closes the zippo lighter, staring outside at the snowy dark and glowering at it as though it had personally affronted him.

Eventually, though, Sherry is too nervous with energy, their relationship- such as it is- still too new, too fumbly for them to really try to fill the silence with anything else other than an awkward space where their eyes refuse to meet, so she gets up to leave, offering an excuse that their rendezvous can’t be much farther, and is pleasantly surprised when Jake catches her as the force of the snowstorm pushes her back, and she notes that his arm stays circled around her waist for a little bit longer than necessary.

***

* * *

 

“mourning”

It started with Gina, her heels scratching against the concrete as she limps towards Claire, eyes a dimming blue against the blood pouring down her face, the bruises and cuts purpling and reddening her pale skin, and Claire cannot even catch her in her arms  as she dies with a whimper. 

 

Pedro and Gabe are next- poor, sweet, skittish Pedro, scared out his mind before transforming into a hulking monster, and Gabe blown out of the sky, a bird deprived of his wings; but Natalia is torn away from them, and Claire and Moira have to find her.

  
She even allows a small amount for Neil- the smallest part, compartmentalized from her rage, from her pain even as he clambers over her, tentacles writing, a slavering, mindless slave to Uroboros; but it’s when she sees Barry, her words empty, a raspy whisper that Moira sacrificed herself to save her, devoid of meaning, but all that she has, that she is allowed her mourning.

 

 

 


End file.
